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LaPolitics: What is your take on the main spending bills?
Invest in Louisiana Executive Director Jan Moller: The House Appropriations Committee did its best with the revenue it had available, which isn’t enough to meet the needs of the state and its people. It’s been described as a standstill budget, but in fact it represents a small cut from current levels. Teachers will not be getting the raise they deserve, but at least they won’t be getting a pay cut, and there are other holes here and there. The Senate has a little more money to spend now, thanks to the Revenue Estimating Conference, so we’ll see what they do with those resources. The big problem with the budget isn’t what happens next year, but the shortfalls that loom in the near future.
What are your main concerns about proposals to further cut taxes?
Louisiana already is facing large budget deficits starting in just two years, and the tax-cut package by House Ways and Means Chair Julie Emerson that’s moving through the Senate would add another $500 million to the gap. It all feels like a potential repeat of 2008, when the Legislature passed deep tax cuts on the eve of a major recession, and the result was years of cuts to higher education, health care and increasingly desperate tricks and gimmicks to avoid even deeper cuts. The tax cut bills are in the Senate’s hands now and hopefully they’ll see that the math just doesn’t add up on these bills. We don’t know what the economy will look like in two years and we haven’t really seen how the November tax cuts will affect tax collections. The last thing we need right now is more uncertainty and even less revenue, especially when Congress is threatening to make deep cuts to federal funding streams that Louisiana relies on to balance its budget.
Beyond the first two questions, how do you feel the session is going so far in regard to Invest in Louisiana’s priorities?
Not great so far. There are far too many Louisianans working hard for low wages and meager benefits. We were hoping the Legislature would support these workers by increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit, creating a child tax credit and establishing a minimum wage. But those bills haven’t moved, and instead legislators have focused on cutting taxes and reviving the constitutional amendments that voters overwhelmingly rejected earlier this spring. Legislators need to realize that our whole economy does better when more families have their basic needs met, and we’re not doing a good enough job of that right now.
How should Louisiana be preparing for potential spending cuts at the federal level?
The “big beautiful bill” has the potential to wreak havoc on Louisiana’s budget and take away health care and food from hundreds of thousands of Louisiana families that work hard for low pay. House Speaker Johnson and Majority Leader Scalise both served in the state Legislature and know how hard it is to balance the state budget. The best thing our Legislature can do is remind these Louisiana leaders how the choices they make in Washington will affect constituents back home, since Louisiana relies more on federal funding than any other state. Then the Legislature should avoid digging the budget hole any deeper with new tax cuts and instead make sure there is enough revenue on hand in case we need to fill the budget gaps created by Washington. One way to do that is by not eliminating the second “rainy day fund” (the Revenue Stabilization Fund), because the rainy day is going to be here sooner than we think.
What is an under-the-radar issue that needs more attention?
One bill that hasn’t received enough attention is Senate Bill 130, which comes from a think tank in Naples, Florida, that’s devoted to tearing down the public safety net. This bill has the potential to strip Medicaid coverage from 100,000 people by creating new paperwork barriers for people who are already enrolled in the program. It was amended on the Senate side to make it less onerous, but it’s still a major concern based on the fiscal note.
—They said it: “Senator Paul, who I respect, isn’t going to vote for anything, ever. I mean, he’s just not. So you just gotta throw that one away.” –U.S. Sen. John Kennedy on U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, while telling Fox Business that he still expects the GOP megabill to pass the Senate in some form
